Kota Kinabalu: Advocates for Non Discrimination and Access to Knowledge (Anak) said Sabah’s birth registration limit of 45 days compared to 60 in the peninsula, places Sabahan births, whether indigenous or migrant, at a disadvantage.
Its Executive Director Anne Baltazar said late registrations require additional administrative procedures and that documentation gaps contribute to wider public health and protection risks.
She cited the Sabah polio outbreak prior to Covid-19 and increased vulnerability to exploitation, child labour and trafficking among undocumented children.
Anne was a panelist in “Right to Identity: Children without Documentation, Migrants and Statelessness” at a symposium, themed “The Child Act 2001 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC): Good Practices” in parliament on June 8 and 9.
She highlighted the compounded vulnerabilities faced by stateless, undocumented, migrant, and Indigenous children in Sabah, many of whom remain unregistered at birth and excluded from essential services such as education and healthcare.
Anne stressed that statelessness is a systemic issue affecting not only migrants and refugees but also indigenous communities in remote areas with limited access to registration services.
She noted that seven of Malaysia’s 10 poorest districts for children are located in Sabah, where geographical challenges and transportation costs create significant barriers to birth registration.
Findings from the CSO Alternative Report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (2024) and the recently released Sabah Child Wellbeing Index further underscore the urgency of reform.
The Index found that only 6.1 per cent of children surveyed met the threshold for living in a safe environment, while among undocumented children, only 0.6 per cent met the threshold for basic health.
Anak welcomed calls for reform by parliamentarians and child rights leaders.
She urged the Government to undertake comprehensive measures, including reforming birth registration procedures to remove barriers faced by Indigenous and stateless families, withdrawing all remaining reservations to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
Particularly Articles 2 and 7, amending the Child Act 2001 to explicitly protect all children regardless of documentation status, ending the immigration detention of children in favour of community-based alternatives, expanding the child protection mandate of the Department of Social Welfare (JKM) to cover all children, and strengthening mobile birth registration outreach services in remote areas of Sabah.
“Birth registration does not automatically confer citizenship, but it is a fundamental human right. A missing document should never mean a missing childhood,” Anne said.
Anak remains committed to advancing the rights of marginalised children in Sabah through advocacy, legal support, education access, and child safeguarding initiatives.
The organisation is a contributing member of the Child Rights Coalition Malaysia (CRCM).